Pipeline protestors project ‘#NODAPL’ on SF Federal Building

Updated 8:33 am, Friday, January 27, 2017

Hundreds of people gathered outside a federal building in San Francisco to protest President Donald Trumpâs plan to move forward with two controversial pipeline projects.

Media: KTVU

For a few minutes, the street was almost silent.

It was a respite from the yelling for the several hundred protestors who Thursday night packed themselves outside San Francisco’s Federal Building to protest President Trump’s executive order that on Tuesday paved the way for the contested Dakota Access Pipeline and other domestic energy projects.

The moments of silence, when the self-stylized water protectors walked into Mission Street and sat down, taking up a sizable swath between Seventh and Eighth streets, came after organizers projected “#NODAPL” in large type on the federal building and aboriginal attendees danced and chanted around the crowd.

Photo: Michael Bodley / Michael Bodley / The Chronicle

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Hundreds of protestors briefly filled Mission Street across from the Federal Building Thursday night to decry President Trump’s executive actions on energy production.

Hundreds of protestors briefly filled Mission Street across from the Federal Building Thursday night to decry President Trump’s executive actions on energy production.

Photo: Michael Bodley / Michael Bodley / The Chronicle

Pipeline protestors project ‘#NODAPL’ on SF Federal Building

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

They brought all the standard signs to the event an organizer said was put together by a Native American advocacy organization, Idle No More SF Bay, and other groups: “Protect the water,” “Step past fossil fuels” and the like. And, as usual, some signs were too explicit to print.

But two undergraduate students who made their way across the bay from UC Berkeley said Trump’s directives Tuesday added new urgency to their movement toward alternative energies and away from fossil fuels.

Jacques Jougla, a freshman from Santa Barbara majoring in environmental science, said that developing renewable energy sources was nothing less than “our future,” adding that this was some way to show that, however small.

“Especially now in light of the election, we can’t rely on the national government anymore to take a stand,” Jougla, 18, said. “California needs to do this.”

His friend helping him hold an anti-DAPL banner, Angela White, also a freshman by way of Chicago, added that “this is just one example of a really long history of abuse of native people, and that’s never been acknowledged.”